Andykiwi

Did Christianity begin just like it says in the bible?
How could it have begun if Jesus didn't exist?
What made the first teachers/preachers of it so enthusiastic about it?

Juststeve

We can never know for sure but my surmise is that Jesus was a real live itinerant preacher with a group of enthusiastic follows. He came to a nasty but not atypical end in Roman controlled Palestine and then someone. perhaps Saul of Tarsus, hallucinated his continued life after the grave. From there the story grew, was embellished and spread.

That’s just a guess but I think a reasonable one.

Steve

Sai

I think a biggest part of it was the times.

Martin Luther King could have lived a hundred years earlier and nobody would remember him.

Israel was in a crisis far worse than anything the USA has remotely begun to face, and look at all the people who were taking a sort of cult like, saviour approach to the Obama candidacy!

Sai

An interesting story is about Cabeza de Vaca, the first European seen by some Indians in the southern USA. He had a group of indians following him around believing that he could do miraculous cures, despite his making no effort to give that impression, and the fact that nobody ever saw him cure anything.

Andykiwi

There were "believers" before Saul/Paul became one though, right?
It seems reasonable that he persecuted them and then felt guilty because they were "good" people, which could have led to his conversion.

Smullyan-esque

You've never seen someone who was enthusiastic about something that wasn't real?

ziffel

Exactly. I present to you ... Mormonism. Angels visiting the U.S., Joseph Smith and the magical golden plates, and lots of other idiocy, and it has millions of followers. Also, Mormonism has grown at a rate very similar to early Christianity.

Andykiwi, not to be dismissive of your excellent question, but I'd suggest reading some of Bart Erhman's works on the subject. He's a foremost scholar on the NT, and his writings on the development of Christianity are very revealing. His education on the subject led him from being an ethusiastic Christian, to a non-believing agnostic.

Juststeve

Andykiwi:

Yes, there were believers before Paul but we don't know exactly what they believed because we don't have the pre-Pauline writings. We don't know who if anyone thought Jesus was resurrected before Paul said so.

Even if there were resurrection believers before Paul we don't know what produced their belief. The only eye-witness account we have of a resurrection experience is Paul's. It appears to be an hallucination and Paul claims it is like unto any other such experience.

I think the fleshy resurrection of Jesus was added after Paul's time.

Steve

+or-1

Constantine and the Council of Nicea invented it to consolidate the Roman Empire. Before that you had various competing cults which may or may not have referred to themselves as "christian" but were certainly not anything resembling a viable religion. The whole crucifixion/resurrection thing is based on a passion play by a Roman playwright, Seneca. That's my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

Deus Ex

I see Christianity as a reformation of Judaism. Combine messianic expectations with the syncretic influence of Greek mystery religions in Hellenized Jews and you have the ingredients for a savior/messiah cult that opens its arms to Gentiles as well as Jews. Also, destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE by the Romans probably disillusioned many Jews of their faith as God's chosen -- making them ripe for a reformation of their belief system.